Out In The Mountains : News - Senate Judiciary Committee Alters H.847

Montpelier, VT – The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee spent four weeks in March and April examining H.847, the civil union bill passed by the House on March 16 in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Baker case.

Under the direction of committee chair Senator Richard Sears, D-Bennington, the six-member panel took testimony from many of the same witnesses and experts heard by the House committee as they drafted their bill.

“We are obligated to go over the bill carefully,” said Sears. “We cannot just rubber-stamp it.”

The committee also discussed a proposed constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Although four of the six panel members were stridently opposed to the constitutional amendment, the committee voted 5-1 on March 11 to have the proposal debated by the full Senate. It went to the floor with ‘no recommendation’ from the committee.

Only Senator Richard McCormack, D-Windsor, voted against sending the amendment out to the floor. “To advance an amendment in order to allow a vote on it is failing to do our duty,” said the Senate Democratic Leader.

However, the majority Democratic leadership of the Senate decided that giving the upper chamber the opportunity to debate the amendment openly, even though it had little chance of passing, was critical in paving the way for the civil union bill. Supporters of the amendment made it clear they would employ a parliamentary procedure to attempt to remove the proposal from the committee if the committee didn’t vote it out.

“Let’s get up on the floor and debate,” said Judiciary Committee Chair Richard Sears, D-Bennington. “I want to give the full Senate the opportunity to vote.”

Senator John Bloomer, R-Rutland, a proponent of a constitutional amendment and a member of the Judiciary Committee, accused the Democrats of maneuvering the vote to send a message, but conceded that Republicans were using similar tactics. “I guess that’s part of the political process,” he said. “I understand it’s being done for jockeying.” Bloomer said his own goal was giving the full Senate a chance to debate the issue, although he conceded the amendment probably didn’t have the support it needed to pass the Senate.

The Senate’s version of the civil union bill was basically the same as that passed by the House with only a few changes, the most significant changing the effective date of the taxation and insurance portions from September 1, 2000 to January 1, 2001. The remainder of the bill would go into effect on July 1, 2000.

The effective date change was in response to testimony from Elizabeth Costle, Commissioner of the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Health Care Administration. She said her department would require at least four months to “develop and adopt rules ensuring that insurance contracts and policies offered to married couples, spouses, and families are made available to parities to a civil union and their families.”

The committee also considered adding a residency requirement to civil unions to address concerns of some senators about strain on the Vermont family court system. The fear was that non-residents would travel to Vermont to get a civil union, then be forced to return to Vermont to dissolve the union, should they break up.

Beth Robinson, attorney for the plaintiffs in the Baker case and president of the board of Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, addressed the proposed change in her March 11 testimony before the committee. She reminded the committee that any one wishing to dissolve a civil union would be subject to the same one-year residency requirement required in a divorce, so additional strain on the courts was unlikely. She also said that the requirement would represent discrimination against non-resident same-sex couples that does not exist for opposite-sex couples wishing to marry.

Sears asked Robinson why people would want to enter into a civil union when it was of no use in their home states. “There are people who have thirsted for equality all their lives,” she said. “They want the simple acknowledgement this would offer.”

In the end, the residency requirement was not added. The bill as amended by the Senate Judiciary Committee was voted out favorably, 4 to 2.